Sermon manuscript:
What should the Christian life look like? That’s a pretty
fundamental and important question. Here are some options for how the Christian
life could be pictured: We could think of being a Christian as a matter getting
better and better. Maybe you start out bad, inexperienced, what-have-you, but
you keep working at it until you become a master.
Or being a Christian could be a matter of staying the same. Usually the Word of God isn’t taken very
seriously when the Christian life is just a matter of staying the same. It’s as
though Christianity is just a matter of identity—you were baptized Lutheran,
just as you were born in Iowa. Or it’s a habit or a hobby. Something that you
do on Sundays that runs alongside your real life. Your real life, Monday
through Saturday, is where your treasure is. Your business, your family, your
recreation, your memory making—that’s the good stuff.
Finally the Christian life could be understood as fighting
against your sinful flesh—sometimes more strongly, sometimes less. Stumbling,
falling, getting back up again. To the extent that your first love dies down
your Old Adam gets stronger. You get tired of the fight. The conscience gets calloused,
less sensitive to sin. The fire is going out if it hasn’t already.
Hopefully—God be gracious and make it so—hopefully the Word
of God is brought to you to make you repent of your sins and to renew your
belief in the forgiveness of your sins. Hopefully, I say, because without this
there is no possibility of true goodness, growth or eternal life. With the Word
of God continuing to correct, admonish and encourage you, you can go on
fighting, stumbling, falling, getting back up again.
It is this last understanding of the Christian life which is
the true Biblical understanding. This is borne out by our Gospel reading today,
which we will get into. But before we do that I’d like to address what you
might be thinking. This fighting, stumbling, falling, getting back up again
Christian life might not sound all that appealing. The alternative
understandings I mentioned before might sound better, and, I have to admit, why
shouldn’t they? Both of them are vastly easier.
Both the triumphant Christian life and the Christian life as
a hobby models basically do away with temptation, suffering, sadness and
trouble. With the Christian life being a meteoric, inevitable rise to glory you
can get good enough to the point where you can essentially retire, resting on
your laurels. When you look at Christianity as being a sidelight of your life,
you don’t have to fight or repent. Why put any energy into that at all? It’s
not important enough. You just coast along. Put in your time at church, however
little that time might be, and go on caring about what you really care about.
It is only with the true understanding of the Christian life
as fighting, stumbling, getting back up again, where temptation is taken
seriously for what it is and engaged. This is not fun or glorious. There’s no
mastering of it so that you can be done with it. We remain beggars, as Luther
supposedly said as his last words. He said, “We are beggars, this is true.” I
don’t know of anybody who wants to be a beggar. But life isn’t a
choose-your-own-adventure book. The devil’s real. Temptations are deadly. But
the death and resurrection of Jesus is real too.
Now let’s turn to Jesus’s altogether realistic view of the
Christian life in our Gospel reading.
We see what has been described as the Christian life right
away. Jesus says, “Temptations to sin are sure to come.” Allow me render
the Greek a little more literally: “It is impossible for deadly temptations
not to come.” It is impossible for there not to be deadly temptations.
These deadly temptations cannot be ignored or brushed aside.
You cannot assume that you are such an advanced Christian that you’re immune.
You cannot assume that temptations are no big deal because you still have your
job, and that’s what’s really important. You’ll always be a Christian because
that’s what you choose to be. No, temptation is deadly. Temptations can bring
about sin through which faith may be lost. When faith is lost it is not within
your own power to come back to faith. If God doesn’t go out searching for you
with his Word, you will remain lost, even if you should physically attend
church week after week.
Temptation is so serious that Jesus gives us a vivid picture
to turn us away from ever helping temptation along: If, by our words or actions,
somebody else is turned to the devil, then it would be better if a huge millstone
weighing hundreds of pounds were hung around our neck and for us to be dumped
into the sea. If temptation or sin or faith were no big deal then such a
drastic terrifying action would be out of place and unneeded. This shows that
the Christian life is not a steady march of progress—onward and upward
Christian soldiers—or something that can be shunted off to the side of your
life.
Next Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he
repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and
seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” These words
are the way you should understand this congregation. The reason why we are a
congregation is to help one another get to heaven. We are not a social club or
even a bunch of do-gooders who are trying to make the world a better place.
Instead, we watch over one another’s souls. If one of us falls into sin, please,
let us love one another enough to rebuke the sin.
Love is needed very badly, because without love we won’t
care enough to open our mouths. We’ll just let the poor, dumb sinner sink under
the weight of his sin. It’s his or her problem. To hell with them. Or, on the
other hand, if we open our mouths without love it may be for the purpose of
harming the sinner even more. Maybe we want to embarrass the person or hurt the
person.
It is very different to rebuke a person in a Christian way,
as you can see from Jesus’s own words. Christian rebukes are aiming towards the
forgiveness of sins. In fact, Jesus seems to be going a little over the top
with his forgiveness. We are to forgive even seven times in a single day. Seven
is a number of completion in the Bible. So the meaning is that we should
forgive our neighbor over and over, whenever he or she repents. Living in
forgiveness is the goal.
Again, this is very important for our understanding of
ourselves as a Christian congregation. The ultimate goal is never for people to
be shamed or even for anyone to hate himself or herself. Now, it may well be,
and it is probably inevitable, that before folks get to the ultimate goal they
end up being ashamed or hating themselves. Such are the terrible fruits of sin!
But what we want for people is for them to be at peace in the forgiveness of
sins for Jesus’s sake.
We are not a bunch of warriors, spiritual big shots, who are
looking for weaklings we can beat up. Each and every one of us is a forgiven
sinner. It is only as a forgiven sinner that we may properly rebuke other
sinners. We should know from personal experience how deadly and seductive
temptation and sin is when we call somebody else to account. And the hope is
never for anybody, no matter what their sin might be, to continue to abide in
shame and despair. That is the devil’s goal. That’s how things are in hell. The
devil wants people to be ashamed and miserable eternally. Jesus, on the other
hand, is the physician who heals those who are diseased. Jesus, through the
word that Christians speak to others, searches out the lost, binds up the
injured, lifts those who have fallen.
To get back to the text, perhaps in response to what Jesus
said about forgiving seven times, the apostles ask Jesus: “Increase our
faith.” Amen to that. That’s what we need.
Jesus responded: “If you had faith like a mustard seed,
you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it
would obey you.’” There is no record in the New Testament of any of the
apostles uprooting or planting any vegetation with their faith. I guess their
faith wasn’t even as big as a mustard seed. And that’s alright. It is not the
strength of our faith that saves, but whether we believe in Christ.
I’m not fond of hearing Christians brag about how much faith
they have. I don’t like hearing people say that they could never fall. They’re
super strong. They’re a prayer warrior. Such talk reminds me of Peter telling
Jesus on the night when he was betrayed: “Even if everybody else falls away,
I will never fall away. Even if I have to die for you, I’ll do it.” And you
know what happened to Peter just a few hours later. He fell.
The Christian life is lived in weakness, Christ says to
Paul, “when we are weak, then we are strong.” When we are weak and
beggarly we won’t be admiring ourselves or our faith or the miracles we can
perform as though in a mirror. We’ll be looking to Jesus, the source of our
faith.
Finally Jesus says, “Which one of you who has a servant
plowing or taking care of sheep will say to him when he comes in from the
field, ‘Come at once and recline at the table’? Won’t the master tell him
instead, ‘Prepare my supper, and after you are properly dressed, serve me while
I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink’? He does not thank the
servant because he did what he was commanded to do, does he? So also you, when
you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We
have only done what we were supposed to do.’”
Perhaps more than anything else we’ve talked about today,
this last part of our reading shows that we can be so easily mistaken about
what the Christian life is supposed to look like. You do not see any talk of
being a master here, a virtuoso, who has harnessed and cultivated mighty spiritual
powers. The talk is the opposite—a slave whose work never seems to be finished.
You also don’t hear about people sitting in an
air-conditioned building one hour a week, not knowing what they are saying
while they are singing and praying, not paying attention and repenting, but
nevertheless are fine Christians.
This slave doesn’t have the luxury of making Christianity
into a hobby or a sidelight for his life. This slave’s Christianity is his life,
and it entails fighting, stumbling, falling, and getting back up again to fight
another day. Because the Christian life is this way Jesus has taught us to
pray, “Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.” We need help in this pilgrim life. We are beggars; this
is true.
And some might say, “If Christianity is like that, then I
don’t want to have anything to do with it.” I can understand that. I’m not
going to twist your arm. There are a lot of preachers who fill the world with
their preaching. I’m sure you can find one that suits your fancies. But
remember this: Life is not a choose-your-own-adventure book. Just because you
like the sound of some lie doesn’t make the lie true.
Here’s the truth: The devil’s real. Your sins are real.
Judgement is coming.
But know this too: Jesus said, “I have not come into the
world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through me.”
The Christian life is not easy, but it is good. We will not be a slave forever.
We will not have to fight forever. One day we will happily be delivered from
this sinful flesh.
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